Where Drowning Amanda Lynne Came From: The River Line Inside Prison Wine’s The Bottom Howls

An Orlando Southern Rock Quartet Took Its Album Title From a Song About a River

The title of Drowning Amanda Lynne comes from its sixth song. On The Bottom Howls, Prison Wine sing that Amanda Lynne got drowned and the river mowed her down. The Orlando band launched the record at Will’s Pub on 16 February 2023. It was their first full-length album in more than a decade together.

Prison Wine’s Drowning Amanda Lynne has its opening track in the playlist below, with the roots rock this desk plays, and the band’s coverage is collected on the Prison Wine profile. The album reached MusicRoots.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Press play on the opener, then read on for where the title came from.

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The Hook: A Drowning in the River, an Old Picture in American Song

The Bottom Howls builds its hook from plain repetition. First, the singer states the drowning. Then the line about the river comes round twice, like a chorus that will not let the image go. After that, the story turns. She calls across the water for the singer to come to her. The answer is a wary question about getting wet. Then she begins to sink.

In fact, that picture has been carried a long way. Banks of the Ohio, a 19th-century murder ballad, turns on a young woman killed on a river bank. Country musicians were recording it by 1927. Similarly, Omie Wise tells of a young woman drowned in 1808. G. B. Grayson recorded it in 1927, and Vernon Dalhart recorded it as Naomi Wise in 1925. Prison Wine do not name either song as a source. Still, the image they chose sits squarely in that tradition.

The other hooks on the record come from turns of phrase, which is an old habit of country writers. For example, on I Call Running, the singer takes someone else’s word for a life spent in bars and swaps it. What they call rambling around, the singer calls running. Also, Inevitability repeats its title word three times as the chorus. Meanwhile, Keeping Stoned works in a small pun, as the singer puts some Stones on the headphones.

The Lyric: Narrators Who Leave, Drink and Keep Moving

The people in these songs are usually on their way out. Allow Me to Show You Out opens the album with a narrator who will not explain the mess. The singer’s throat is dry from swallowing someone else’s stress. The only promise is to be gone eventually. So the album’s first song is an exit line used as an entrance.

On Cost of Admission, the singer has lived a hard life on purpose. There is a bow for a crowd that never cared for the act. The price of getting in keeps falling, and so does the singer, back into old ways. Later comes a plea to get out of a corny town.

Bone Digger, the first single, came out in November 2022. Its Bandcamp credits name the singer and guitarist Geoffrey Cravero as the writer. It is a train song. A locomotive keeps the beat, and the singer means to hit the tracks and get off the street. Along the way, the singer gets a pistol and throws it away. The singer also claims the blues as a credential for playing them. Finally, the closing couplet sets a listener who digs up bones against a singer who spends the time getting stoned.

Keeping Stoned ends the album alone. She no longer needs the singer. The razor goes unused and the house goes uncleaned, while the singer admits to having been something once.

Where the Outlaw Voice Came From

That voice has a lineage, and the band have studied it on stage. In June 2019, Prison Wine played a full tribute to Waylon Jennings at Will’s Pub. The date was what would have been the singer’s 82nd birthday. Jennings ranks among the pioneers of the outlaw movement in country music. Then, in November 2021, the band did the same for Gram Parsons, a native of Winter Haven, Florida. Critics credit Parsons with helping to found country rock and alt-country.

The Structure of Drowning Amanda Lynne: Eleven Tracks, Four Players and Two Guests

The record runs to eleven tracks and about 42 minutes. The opener is one of the shortest at two minutes and forty seconds, and only Rotten Tones is briefer. By contrast, the longest is Andy’s Band Song, at four minutes and forty-five seconds. The title line sits in the middle, on the sixth track, so the album turns on it.

However, the guests arrive late. Jessy Lynn Martens joins on Inevitability, the ninth track. Beyond Florida, listeners know the Orlando Americana singer as the singing voice of Cherlene on the animated series Archer. It is a song about a couple whose timing never worked. One is looking at rings while the other plans trips, and the goodbye is coming either way. JP Thieme then appears on the tenth track.

The credits on the first single name the players. Cravero sings and plays guitar, and Dave Mann plays lead guitar. Crews Carter plays bass, while Hurley Partin Whitaker II sings and plays drums. The band’s own site now lists Joshua Hoffman on bass, and Cravero on harmonica as well.

From the Release Show to Band of the Year

The release followed the old local route. Orlando Weekly‘s Bao Le-Huu noted that the band had been around for over a decade before this debut. The same column described the album as country-fried rock. At the release show at Will’s Pub, the record was on sale on vinyl and CD. That night, Prison Wine were also the local support for Supersuckers.

Coverage since has come from Allen Peterson Reviews, the Spanish-language blog Zona Emergente and Radio Armazem. In July 2023, Eat This Rock also picked I Call Running as one of four new songs to hear that night.

The songs have kept travelling. In November 2024, the band played Cost of Admission at the DeLand Original Music Festival. There, the Songwriter’s Showcases of America gave them its Band of the Year award. Newer songs such as Crash the Plane and Eat the Bourgeois Raw have joined the set. Meanwhile, the band’s site says the next album is in the works.

Who Drowning Amanda Lynne Is For

Drowning Amanda Lynne suits listeners of alt-country, Americana and Southern rock who care about the writing. Start with The Bottom Howls to hear where the title came from. Then go back to the top and let Allow Me to Show You Out open the door.

MusicRoots.News’s curator team: “Drowning Amanda Lynne rewards anyone who reads the track list as a map. The sixth song holds the title. The guests arrive in the last stretch, and the record opens on a line about leaving. That is careful sequencing. It suits a band that has marked the birthdays of Waylon Jennings and Gram Parsons with full tribute shows.”

Listen to Drowning Amanda Lynne and Follow Prison Wine

You can follow Prison Wine across these platforms:

• Stream the album: Bandcamp, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music, or open the Bandcamp player
• Follow the band: Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X
• Watch: the YouTube channel, with live sets and the tribute shows
• News and shows: the band’s official site

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